OFFSTAGE: Kenny Chesney: Songs From Studio to Stage

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

For Kenny Chesney, a song has to be the peg that fits in a lot of holes. It can’t just work in the studio, when he’s recording it. And it can’t just work on the radio. He looks much further down the road. All the way to his live shows. And that kind of stresses him out, he told Billboard magazine
. “Making a song is a wonderful, creative time, but for me it can be a very stressful time. If you don’t get it right in the studio, you’re not going to get it right on the radio and out on the road,” he said. “When I’m in the studio, I imagine myself being in the grass at an amphitheater. ‘What’s going to turn me on? What’s going to make me care?’” His upcoming album Welcome to the Fishbowl was recorded in Nashville, but he put the finishing touches on it at a studio in St. Barts in the French West Indies. Or, as Chesney puts it, St. Barts was where they kissed the music with rays of sunshine. Twenty more days until we hear how that sunshine sounds.